Chapter 131: The Master's Reading

That night, Chu Wanning lay on his bed in the red lotus, tossing and turning, unable to sleep.

He wondered how Mo Ran had grown into the man he was today, Mo Zong Shi, Mo Weiyu, and when he closed his eyes he saw the man's heroic face, his gaze blazing, his fortitude and tenderness lingering within.

Chu Wanning cursed, kicked the duvet heavily and it slid off the edge of the bed, leaving him lying on the bed in a wide circle, staring up at the beam, his eyes tormented.

He did everything he could to free himself from lust, to cut the ties of love, until he was exhausted.

" Mo Weiyu you beast." He muttered.

Turning his head, he couldn't shake the tide of thought, the hot, tight body he had seen in the Miaoyin Pool still seemed to loom before his eyes, he saw broad shoulders, a sharp back, turned around and the hot water flowed slowly down the mermaid's line

He sat up violently from the bed, his face blue, and never dared to think about it again.

Grabbing a book at hand was like grabbing a lifeline.

Poor Chu Wanning, he was a brilliant man, but now he has to rely on books to get rid of his demons. The open book, which I don't know which one Xue Meng had bought, was at first incomprehensible to Chu Wanning, but it took him a while to realise what he was reading.

Only on the thin page, in unmistakable correctness, was written the line

Xianxia sector in size ranking

I know all the words, but when they are piled up together, Chu Wanning is a bit confused.

Sizing in the prime of life

What size

Stature

Further down the page, the slightly smaller handwriting has another sentence next to it: Since this list is not complete, as it covers all the heroes, there are those who never bathe outside and those who do not go near flowers and willows, the Confucianism School is missing the size of Nangong Si and Xu Shuanglin, the Lonely Moonlit is missing the size of Jiang Xi, and the Top of Death and Life is missing Xue Meng, Xie Fengfeng, Chu Wanning

""

Chu Wanning froze for a moment.

What do you mean they still need to bathe outside and go to the lanes to see how big they are?

I can't believe I saw my name!

He frowned, tapped his fingertips on the name list and continued to read on. Unfortunately the first name made him choke for a moment.

Mo Weiyu.

Status: Duke of the Top of Death and Life, Master of Ink

Chu Wanning looks back at Mo Ran's stature, and while the boy is certainly tall and imposing these days, he doesn't have to be in first place.

Further down the page, it reads, "Viewed during a bath at Deyutang, this is not a mundane object, and it is astonishing."

""

De Yu Tang Bath

Never a mundane object

Chu Wanning had a vague feeling that something was wrong, but he was so used to having a clear mind that he couldn't figure out what was wrong and had to read on.

In second place was a casual practitioner he had not heard of, and next to it was also written, "Observed while bathing in the mountains and forests, very great."

"What a nonsense." Chu Wanning was somewhat disgusted, "Shoes and hair can increase or decrease the size of the body, but they are not so different that you have to wait for someone to take a bath to peek at them, how can such miscellaneous books be popular among the people nowadays"

Seeing third place

Mei Hanxue

Status: Kunlun Snow Walk Palace

This time the small print next to it is different, it no longer says "Bathing and watching the clouds, but "The maidservant of the Spring Ying House is the husband of the maidservant, with the support of the maids of the Xianxia sector, this object of the Duke of Mei can make the woman's body soft into water and her bones into mud, and it is not a problem to protect ten people at night."

Chu Wanning :""

After a few moments of dead silence, Elder Yu Heng's head exploded with a buzz. He threw the booklet from one end of the bedroom to the other with a fierce snap. He threw the booklet from one end of the bedroom to the other with a fierce snap like a hot potato, his face red as fire, his eyes flashing, his whole body confused.

What he saw

What size is it? Even if he was dull, he could sense it now. What other size could it be, shameless, unscrupulous, dirty and unashamed?

After sitting on the bed for a long time, Chu Wanning was still not satisfied, so he got out of bed and picked up the booklet again, and with the force of his fingers, the paper was shattered into fragments.

However, the words "not a mundane object, awe-inspiring" were like a red-hot iron, hissing at the bottom of his heart, making his face flush and his heart thunder.

In the Miaoyin Pool, his gaze had deliberately shifted upwards, not looking where it shouldn't have, and the pool was so steamy that the flesh was a dense blur, so he couldn't have seen it clearly even if he had. The words, however, are often more alive than the picture, making it easier to imagine.

Never a mundane object

Chu Wanning wiped his face hard and halfway through, he grabbed the blanket and covered his head.

What had happened to him on his first day out of prison Chu Wanning thought with a sigh of relief that the world had changed and he could not lie back and die again

However, Elder Yu Heng had always been a strict disciplinarian, and even though he had not had a good night's sleep, even though he was appalled, and even though he had no peace of mind, he got up on time the next day, dressed and freshened up, and with the same majestic and ascetic face, he floated down to the top of the Mountain of Death and Life.

Today was the monthly school inspection, and the Good and Evil Terrace was shimmering with armour, where thousands of disciples were performing their martial arts while the elders inspected them on the high platform.

After five years of absence, Chu Wanning's position remains unchanged, to the left of Xue Zhengyong.

He came up the long stone steps in a white dress, looking sickly, and then, with a flick of his sleeves, sat down on an empty seat and poured himself a pot of tea, drinking and watching.

When Xue Zhengyong saw his bad face, he thought he had made Chu Wanning angry because Mo Ran had not gone to the banquet yesterday, so he went over to him and said quietly, with a curt meaning, "Yu Heng, Mo Ran is back."

Chu Wanning's brow twitched and his face got worse instead, "Well, I've seen you."

"Ah met" Xue Zhengyong was stunned, then nodded, "That's good, how's it getting"

"Hmm."

Chu Wanning didn't really want to continue talking to Xue Zhengyong about Mo Ran, after all, he'd had the curse of "no ordinary thing is amazing" repeating in his head since yesterday. He didn't intend to look for Mo Ran in the sea of people below him, but simply looked down at the table.

"Lots of fresh fruit snacks."

Xue Zhengyong smiled, "It's not too early to use it, so have some more if you like."

Chu Wanning was not shy to take a piece of lotus flower pastry and ate it with hot tea. The colour of the lotus puff pastry gradually changes in an orderly manner, from the base of the petals to the tip of the blossom, with a cardamom-like scarlet colour, and the layers of puff pastry are crisp and crunchy in the mouth, while the bean paste inside is sweetened with cinnamon.

" Lin'an Qingfeng Court's handiwork" Chu Wanning murmured, turning to Xue Zhengyong, "is not made by the master of Mengpo Court"

"No, it's something Mo Ran has brought back to pay tribute to you." Xue Zhengyong laughed, "Look at the other elders' tables, they don't have any."

"Only when he said this did Chu Wanning realise that the wooden table in front of him was full of fruit desserts of all kinds, including cakes and preserves, and even a small jasper-coloured celadon bowl with a closed lid containing three sweet dumplings, no less.

The dumplings are not made from the usual white glutinous rice, but from Lin'an's lotus root, which is mixed into the dough, a crystal clear grain with a jade-like colour.

"Oh, this is a little something that Mo Ran borrowed from the kitchen at Mengpo Court this morning, the red one is stuffed with moon bean paste, the yellow one is stuffed with peanuts and sesame seeds, and the green one is made from finely ground dragon well tea. Xue Zhengyong muttered, "It's been a busy morning, very fine, and only three were made."

Chu Wanning :""

"Yu Heng, do you have enough to eat?"

"Hmm." Chu Wanning was quiet for a moment before nodding.

When he eats soup dumplings, he actually never eats more than three. The first one is sweet, the second one is sweet, the third one is insatiable, and if he eats a fourth one, he gets a bit bored.

Mo Ran cooked exactly three of them, which was a coincidence, no more, no less, just the way he wanted it.

The white porcelain spoon scooped up the lovely, round, lotus root-root flour skin soup balls and brought them to my lips, finding that they were just the right size to eat in one bite, unlike the ones made by Mengpo Court's cooks for the Lantern Festival, which were so big that they stuck to my mouth and took a lot of effort to eat.

The person who made the dumplings seemed to know exactly how big his mouth could hold, what size to eat in his mouth without being uncomfortable, and the endless intimacy that seemed to be wrapped up in the soft filling.

This thought somehow caused Chu Wanning's heart to stir, then die of shame and hide behind his composure.

"He's quite good at his craft."

"It's a pity it's only made for you, no one else can eat it, not even me as an uncle." Xue Zhengyong sighed, regretfully.

Chu Wanning listened, pursing his lips lightly and not saying a word, only taking a spoon to stir the hot water in the bowl of calabash, the dumplings already finished, just the right amount of sweetness, slowly melting away in his heart.

After a snack, Chu Wanning took a dossier from his desk and went to look at some of the changes that had taken place at the top of the Dead in the last five years, regardless of the frenzy of the martial arts parade below.

It was all put together by Xue Zhengyong and was so concise that Chu Wanning soon finished reading it. When he raised his hand to cover the volume, he saw another booklet pressed underneath.

"This is," he said as he took it out, a thick, thread-bound book that looked very thick. Xue Zhengyong glanced at it and smiled, "It's also a gift from Mo Ran. Yesterday he said he had fought with an evil spirit on his way back and the book was accidentally spattered with blood, and many pages were torn.

Chu Wanning nodded and opened the book, running his long, thin hand over the head of the volume, where, in neat, regular script, were written four words.

Book with my Master.

His eyes widened slightly in some surprise.

This is a letter to him

He lifted his eyes to look down into the sea of people to find Mo Ran, but all he saw was armour glittering like fish in a pond.

Unable to find anyone for a moment, he continued to look down at the letter.

Every day after Chu Wanning's retreat, Mo Ran missed his master. He had so many things on his mind that he was afraid he would forget them after a long time. So he found someone to make a sturdy book, a thick one, containing 1,825 sheets of paper. He calculated that he would write a letter to his master every day for five years, writing everything from a particularly unpleasant leaf rake he had eaten to what he had learnt from his training today.

He had originally counted one thousand eight hundred and twenty-five sheets of paper, no more and no less, and when he had finished writing them, it was time for the Master to leave the gate.

But sometimes I can't stop, the words are squeezed into a tiny ball, eagerly pouring onto the paper, and I can't wait for Chu Wanning to see the sea-buckthorn flowers in the north of the desert, the smoke of the Changbai Mountains, or to hide the dessert I tasted today in the paper, waiting for Chu Wanning to wake up and enjoy it with me.

The little lines, which did not stop from the beginning to the end, did not contain any melodramatic statements, nor did they write anything sad or upsetting, only an honest note of every splendid moment of the five years, and he only took what was good and shared it with him.

So the page a day that he had once counted on was naturally not enough at the end, and he attached a thick stack of letters to the back of the booklet

Chu Wanning rolls slowly, his eyes a little moist.

He watched Mo Ran's handwriting go from childish to upright, from upright to handsome.

While the latest ink stains seem to have not yet dried, the earliest handwriting is becoming green and yellow.

The four words "Letter to my Master", each one different from the other, slowly move from light hooves and fast horses to white snow.

At the end of the day, the plumes are dangling, the bending iron is breaking gold, the end is skimming and pressing the wind, the horizontal screen and the vertical curved hook.

Chu Wanning turns to the last page and rubs his fingers over the four words at the top of the volume.

Book with my Master, Book with my Master.

He looked at the dignified brush and ink, as if he saw the tip of Mo Ran's brush only just dangling, the wolf's brush resting, the man looking up, no longer a teenager.

From the first to the last letter, it was as if he saw Mo Ran go from sixteen to twenty-two, her figure drawing in and her brow deepening.

Just every day, he would sit down at the desk and write a letter to him.

"Master."

At some point, when the demonstration was over, Chu Wanning heard someone calling out to him and looked up to see Xue Meng waving excitedly at him from the front of the Good and Evil stage.

Next to Xue Meng, a man with broad shoulders and a narrow waist, long legs and a straight body, is standing quietly, his face glowing with heat after his martial arts performance, his forehead sweaty and shining in the sunlight with a crystal sheen like the bright fur of a cheetah.

When Mo Ran saw Chu Wanning looking at him, he froze for a moment and then suddenly smiled. In the golden morning light, his smile was so enchantingly bright, like the rustling of pines soaked in the rising sun, the eagerness in his eyes, the tenderness in his eyelashes, the blush on his hard, upright face, so vivid and fiery it was dazzling.

What a handsome son of a gun.

Chu Wanning sat unmoved on the platform with his arms clasped, looking down at him haughtily, but no one could tell that he was already in turmoil and in disarray.

In the crowd, Mo Ran smiles and laughs, then suddenly raises his hand and points to his shirt and then to Chu Wanning.

"" Chu Wanning did not react, her phoenix eyes narrowing slightly as she looked at him suspiciously.

Mo Ran smiled more knowingly and folded her hands around her lips, making a few quiet gestures.

Chu Wanning :""

Leaves rustling, morning breeze, Mo Ran seems a little helpless, a smile rolling across his lips, shaking his head and nodding at his lapel.

Chu Wanning bows his head and, after a moment, suddenly flushes his ears.

""

The wizened Elder Yu Heng, under the guidance of his disciple, suddenly realised that he had woken up in a hurry in the morning and that the red lotus water salon clothes were in disarray, so he had casually put on the same one that he had mistakenly taken from Mo Ran yesterday.

No wonder I felt something dragging on the floor when I was walking today, it was the hem of my shirt.

Mo Weiyu, you can do it. Chu Wanning turned his face away in anger. You're an insensitive bastard who doesn't know what he's talking about!